Bookbug, stories, puppets and fun!

January 26, 2022 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

Today Bookbug came to nursery to share some rhymes, stories and songs with the children.

We stretched, pulled and moved the lycra to make our toys bounce up so high in the air! We had lots of fun singing 1,2,3,4,5, Humpty Dumpty and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We had to be very careful not to let them fall off the Lycra (we’ll need to practice this 😀)

We enjoyed reading the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We had so much fun using puppets to retell the story ourselves.

Bookbug supports the development of children’s language and vocabulary, turn taking, being with our friends and being involved by choosing the songs and story.

It’s always fun when Bookbug comes to nursery!😀

Special Event

Celebrating Robert Burns 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

January 25, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today the children celebrated Burns’ Day with a variety of different experiences throughout the centre.

Out in the garden the children made Scotch pancakes cooked on our fire. They enjoyed measuring and mixing the ingredients and watched whilst Fiona cooked them on the fire pit. They demonstrated good listening skills whilst being told about how to keep safe around the fire.

Continuing the Scottish theme, some of the children used their creative skills to design their own tartan using paint and cars. They rolled their car in the paint then onto their paper.

In the Home Room the children asked to make flapjacks. They measured each of the ingredients, developing both numeracy and literacy skills. After mixing them together they used the clock to time how long they took to cook in the oven. They even assisted with cleaning up.

The children in the Discovery Room read a story by Rebecca Colby and Kate McLelland about a wee lassie who swallowed a midgie! They watched a short story on the life of Robert Burns and enjoyed some highland dancing.

The children love to sing at Cartmill and today was no exception. In the Studio they learned some Scottish songs; Coulter’s Candy, 3 Craws sat upon a Wa’ and Pop a little pancake into a pan. They even joined in, playing musical instruments.

All the children enjoyed tasting some haggis, neeps and tatties for snack and tasted some of their flapjacks.

Expressive Arts

Junk modelling robot

January 25, 2022 Miss Brown Leave a comment

We have been enjoying exploring the junk modelling area since moving in to the Studio room last week. The children discussed what they would like to make and made a plan to make a robot but what would they need, they decided to list all the things they would need.

”We need glue”
”and Cellotape”
“and of course, junk!”

The children used their imagination and problem solving skills to figure out how to make the parts stay together.

“You need to leave the glue to dry so it sticks”

The children worked together as a team making sure they followed their design so that everything was in the right places.

“paint it yellow like a bumble bee”

To finish off they decided to paint it yellow and add some cardboard tubes for arms.

The yellow paint didn’t cover the box as well as we thought, so the children improvised and used yellow tissue paper instead.

We are always looking for cardboard boxes (big and small), bottle lids, cartons, cereal boxes etc. to add to our collection so save your recycling and instead of putting it all in your blue bins, bring it in to us!

Uncategorized

Magic Magnets

January 21, 2022 Ms Taylor Leave a comment

Today in the discovery room we looked at magnets and how they work.

We decided to select different items we found around our playroom and investigated to see if they were magnetic using a selection of different sized magnets.

We used our mathematical skills to discover that magnets can pull together objects or push them away. We also found that although we had two of the same item, only one was magnetic. This is because objects that look the same are not always made of the same material.

We recorded our findings on a chart. It showed us what items were magnetic and those that were non-magnetic. We discovered that magnetic things were made of metal but items that were made of wood or plastic were not magnetic, unless they had a little bit of metal in them!

We loved listening to each other making our predictions whether something was magnetic or not, everybody made sure they were taking turns when choosing what items to test. We loved guessing the material!

Why don’t you have a look around the house and guess what materials are magnetic or not!

Literacy

Let’s make Scones

January 20, 2022 Miss Keith Leave a comment

Today in the Home Room we had a look at some recipes and chose to make scones. We gathered up the ingredients, some were in the cupboards and some in the fridge.

We then washed our hands and put our aprons on.

We carefully measured out the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. We checked the numbers on the scales to see when the spoonfuls of flour reached 300g . We talked about the different sizes of spoons as we needed 2 tablespoons of sugar, but only one teaspoon of baking powder. Then we added the oat milk .

Today we added cherries to our scones. We discussed our safety rules when using a knife and then carefully cut up lots of cherries to add to our mixture.

We developed our fine motor skills by using the rolling pins and cutters to make the scones. We counted out the number of scones we had each made and put them on the oven tray ready to bake.

We took the scones to the oven. We discussed the oven being very hot and this part has to be done by a adult. Our scones need to be in the oven for 15 minutes, so let’s check the clock!⏰ Our scones are ready and they look very tasty.

Now it’s tidy up time! We worked together to put our ingredients back in the cupboards and fridge, swept the floor and wiped the table.
We are looking forward to trying out our scone recipe again!

Outdoor Learning

We’re going on a number hunt!!

January 19, 2022 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

We’re going on a number hunt, we’re going to find a big one!

Today the children had so much fun going on a number hunt in our local area. We found lots of numbers in some interesting places!

We even took little Blue along to help us on our hunt…

We put our thinking caps on and thought how could we make our own numbers? We found some big sticks, and some little sticks and made some numbers in the gloopy mud! It was very sticky. We couldn’t go under it… we couldn’t go over it… we had to go through it!!!

“it’s very very squelchy”

”I’m going to write 5 because that’s my number”

“look, it’s a 0 and a 1!”

Well done boys and girls, you were all super detectives on our number hunt!!

I wonder where else we could find some more interesting numbers? Or maybe you could try going on a letter or a shape hunt! Have fun everyone 🤩!!

Outdoor Learning

Number Games in the Garden!

January 18, 2022 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

Today in the garden the children were playing games using chalk, hoops and bean bags! The children helped to number a hop scotch grid using chalk and then had great fun playing on it.
“I jumped on 2 and 3!” “I can hop and jump to 10!”

The children were trying to balance bean bags on their heads whilst moving around the garden.

“I can run fast with mine!” “I’m walking slow with mine!”

The children thought it would be fun to try hop scotch with the bean bags on their heads. They demonstrated really good balance whilst hopping and jumping!

The children thought up a good game to play with the bean bags and hoops! They numbered inside the hoops with chalk and earned points for throwing the bean bags into the hoops! When it got too easy they moved further away from the hoops!

What a great game! We had really good fun in the garden today!

Uncategorized

Addition & Subtraction

January 17, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today has been an exciting day as the children moved from the Home Room into the Discovery Room. They have been busy investigating and exploring the new areas.

They have enjoyed using the Promethean active board in particular, where they explored a variety of numeracy games through Top Marks. You could try these at home too on www.topmarks.co.uk

The children developed their numeracy skills, fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination, as well as sharing, taking turns and recognising the need to follow rules. We had great fun being able to identify and recognise numbers 0-20. We were able to estimate how many without having to count. The children counted forwards and backwards and were learning how to add and subtract. We all enjoyed learning new language to describe subtraction and adding e.g take away; add one more on. “I have to put one back” “we need two more to make ten”.

Later in the day the children decided they wanted to get fit and do a sticky kids exercise activities.

We had so much fun listening and following the actions whilst showing off our gross motor skills, balancing skills, jumping and developing our awareness of space. Well done everyone! Why not give it a go at home 👍

Expressive Arts

Let’s Sew 🧵

January 14, 2022 Miss Keith Leave a comment

Recently we have had a sewing table added to our room, The Studio. This has sparked the children’s interest and they have begun to show great creativity whilst using a needle and thread.

The children have being learning the names of all the equipment we use to sew. A needle (this can be jaggy) some thread and scissors (watch out they can be sharp !). The children have been developing their fine motor skills along with their hand and eye coordination when practising using the needle and thread on our sewing table.

As the children’s skills have improved we thought we could try to sew on a button . First we chose our button and reminded ourselves about the jaggy needle. We then tried to thread our needle – this was quite tricky and sometimes we needed a little bit of help. Some of the children chose more than one button and used their creative skills to make a pattern with the buttons. We then sewed on the button and cut the thread off at the end.
The children worked carefully and took time to make sure the needle went in the correct place. Concentration skills were very well used today and the children were very pleased with their buttons. The material and buttons were then used as placemats, parachutes and purses. Great imagination and hard work .

What will we sew next time ?

Digital Technology

Train Track

January 13, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

This morning in the Discovery room the children asked if they could get the train track out. Using their fine motor skills the children worked together to build the train track. One child asked if they could build a really big track so we moved the table to create a large open space for the children to extend the track as large as possible .

When the track was complete, another child asked if they could build bridges around the track. Using their gross motor skills, the children chose a variety of different sized blocks to create bridges around the track.

Incorporating technology into the play, we turned on the promethean board and played the noise of steam trains chugging along and sounding their horn.

Everybody had great fun pulling along the trains and cars on the track and pushing them under the bridges.